Knowledge Bank has launched software for lenders to identify criteria gaps that may see them excluded from broker searches.   

The criteria platform says its KB INSIGHTS system allows firms to “interrogate their own criteria’s performance and benchmark it, either against the whole, or a specific area of the market”.  

It adds the tool can also highlight “new lending opportunities and the size of this potential”.  

The system is available across all seven lending types covered by the platform — residential, buy to let, second charge, equity release, self-build, bridging and commercial — and gives firms the option to customise subscriptions to only include the areas that they lend on.  

It shows the top 20 criteria searches performed by brokers across seven lending types.  

The software uses a dashboard which shows lending firms their average search position measured against the market and how many times they have appeared in brokers’ searches.  

It also features a policy performance ‘ribbon’ that displays the lenders’ spectrum of acceptance.   

Firms are also able to compare their policy wording, spread and gradings as well as the popularity of categories. The tool displays criteria categories, which profile potential borrowers as well as the cases that brokers are looking to place.  

It adds: “For lenders who want to plumb the data straight into their own analytics, an application programming interface is also available.”  

The platform says the system was built in consultation with several high-street lenders, building societies and specialist lenders.  

Knowledge Bank chief executive Nicola Firth says: “Lenders have always been desperate to know how and where their criteria is positioned in brokers’ searches and now they have that power.

“Typically, they only knew about the cases that made it through to an application and had no idea how many potential borrowers were excluded by their criteria decisions.”  

“Comparison tools are built into the system and lenders can use KB INSIGHTS to really drill down into the data and fine-tune their policy proposition and give greater clarity to brokers.”